and what have you done that's generous?
by austheke
Summary: Sarah finds herself on her knees in the snow before a certain Goblin King, with a chance to reclaim the offer she once rejected.


Hello, love.

_(Voice __like __velvet__—__eyes __so __bright__—__  
By __what __name __goes __this __faery __knight?)_

She can't think of anything but inane rhymes—poems from someone else's childhood.

Such a cold greeting, precious. Won't you at least say hello?

It really is cold, she hadn't noticed—there's the white-hot glare of snow and ice all around them. Or perhaps the ice is only in his eyes; she can't tell anymore. Nonetheless she shivers.

He's unperturbed as usual, devastatingly composed—oblivious, she supposes, to the biting cold. The wind whips up the worn edges of his white cloak, gives him wings for just a moment. An owl, perhaps, but a moth-eaten one.

She almost pities him, but of course that's not right. She's the one kneeling before him in the snow—did she fall? she can't remember. It's not fair, she thinks, but the words are frozen to her tongue.

___(a lovely lady rode him fair beside  
__upon a horse as white as snow  
__yet she much whiter, but the same did hide  
__under __a __veil __that __was __wimpled __full __low  
__and __over __all __a __black __stole __she __did __throw__)_

She hears the verses fall woodenly from her lips, reflects on the stupidity of quoting _Faerie __Queen e_to a faerie king. Stupid, stupid, like many of her choices have been.

Of veils and horses I have none to show, he mocks, mimicking her rhyme effortlessly. I assure you, I know my Spenser as well as you do.

He steps through the snow then, his boots very black against the white. His footsteps are feline, and all of a sudden she recalls his demands: _fear__me_. Once upon a time she was too young to be afraid, but that story has ended—she has grown up.

But this time he says nothing, only kneels beside her, lifts her chin so her eyes meet his, gently, gently. His fingers are very warm.

Sssarah.

She has never forgotten the way he says her name. In the years since her childhood the Labyrinth has become a frame—crafted in crystal detail, but still only a frame—to its darkly shining king. And the man-shape of him, the strange eyes and cruel mouth—in her dreams they are only a frame for the name on the tip of his tongue.

_Sarah._

And as if for the first time, she hears his voice wound around the letters, the caress he lays upon it before he speaks. As if it were infinitely, irreplaceably precious. As if she were irreplaceable and infinite and precious.

Within that one word lies the truth, the entire tale, the depth of love and loss—the sorrow of what he has let escape him, and the joy of what he stands to gain.

And he's so close now, his breath coasting over her face, the liquid heat of him washing over her skin, and in his eyes is a fire she never saw when she ran the Labyrinth as a child.

_Jareth_—the name comes unbidden from somewhere deep in her belly where an answering fire is smoldering, waking from old embers. Jareth, she says again, savoring it, and with it the fire flares fierce and brilliant in her and she leans forward one last inch and kisses him in all his glorious heat.

And oh, he's so warm; she melts into him without a thought. For a long lovely moment the ice is gone, the winter wind stops blowing, and there is nothing in the world besides the two of them, alight. His hands hold her to him, possessive, delighted, and he smiles, runs his fingers down her sides, makes her shudder, licks into her mouth with nothing less than triumph.

Sarah, he says against her lips—she can taste it on her tongue—she can feel it in her bones—you're no match for me.

What? she says.

And then he's—gone, standing suddenly far away from her, regal and wintry once more, and she remembers in a rush what it is to be cold, desperately, deathly cold. The wind roars around her, screams in her ears, reaches for her with icy fingers, but his eyes are colder yet. His face is a mask.

I have been generous up until now. But I can be cruel.

Jareth, please, she pleads. You have been generous, you have.

Your will is stronger than mine, he recites, and your kingdom as great. His eyes are hard, his smile cynical. I have no power over you. I have no power over you. I have no power over you.

And far in the distance, a clock chimes.

The snow swirls up purposefully around him, shrouding him in glittering mist. He walks away from her, deliberately, his eyes never leaving hers, until the moment where he gestures, once, and vanishes. In the bitter air he leaves one last whisper: you always did underestimate me.

And then she wakes up. Wakes up with a man other than the one of her dreams, wakes up to find that there are tears in tired trails down her face, wakes up to find a sob gathering itself in her chest.

Beside her he stirs, that other man, surfacing from sleep. Not awake, not yet. And so she knows for certain whose voice it is that breathes in her ear: _I __offered __you __your __dreams, __once..._

But that story has ended too.

.:.

* * *

_The second bit of poetry is from_ Faerie Queene _by Edmund Spenser. The first bit I just made up, which is why it sounds so silly._

_Critique and suggestions are always, always welcome! I would like to note, though, that the quotation marks (or, rather, the lack of them) _was_ a conscious stylistic choice. Still, if you don't like it, please let me know what you thought of it.  
_

_Jareth, Sarah and the wonderful Labyrinth (c) Jim Henson._


End file.
